10 Responses

Young girls her age wore white dresses for good all year around. It was their party dresses. When I was researching edgings for crochet I found this out. They usually showed off their needle work skills with all the pin tucks and emboirdery. White on white. I bet she was upset that her dress was torn. You are right that colors were now dark and of heavy fabrics. Her white dress would have been a thin white cotton over a white cotton full slip. Or just a nice white cotton that you could do white on white embroidery. She would have several collars and cuff to change out around the neck and on the long sleeves. They would have been crocheted or knitted of cotton thread. This was toward the end of the period of the fashionable Irish crocheted assesories. They also had button covers and buttons that where like cuff links that could be changed out. They got alot of mileage out of a dress. Women’s clothes were a big investment.

Perhaps she was trying on the dress to have it altered, or checking if it still fit her. Or maybe it was an unusually warm autumn day. (Is there some way of finding out what the temperature was that day, or aren’t weather recods kept for 100 years?)

Hello

I look forward to sharing my grandmother's diary with relatives and friends. Helena Muffly (Swartz) kept a diary from 1911-1914. She was 15 years old when she began this diary. I plan to post these entries one day at a time—exactly 100 years after she wrote them. I hope you enjoy this glimpse back to a slower paced time.

The header is a picture of the farm where my grandmother lived when she wrote this diary. It is located in Northumberland County in central Pennsyvlania about a mile outside of McEwenvsille. My father said that the buildings look similar to what they looked like when he was a child.